. The conclusion was very plain. And to
secure the conclusion, the way was very plain too; I must simply not be
like the world. I must not be of the world; and I must let it be known
that I was not.

Face to face with the issue, I started back. For not to be of the
world, meant, not to follow their ways. I did not want to follow some
of their ways; I had no desire to break the Sabbath, for example; but
I did like to wear pretty and elegant and expensive things, and
fashionable things. It is very true, I had just denied myself this
pleasure, and bought a plain dress and coat that did not charm me; but
that was in favour of Margaret and to save money for her. And I had no
objection to do the same thing again and again, for the same motive;
and to deny myself to the end of the chapter, so long as others were
in need. But that was another matter from shaking hands with the world
at once, and being willing that for all my life it should never know
me as one of those whom it honoured. Never _know_ me, in fact. I must
be something out of the world's consciousness, and of no importance to
it. And to begin with, I must never try to enlighten my schoolfellows'
eyes about myself. Let them think that Daisy Randolph came from
somewhere in the country and was accustomed to wear no better dresses
in ordinary than her school plaid. Let them never be aware that I had
ponies and servants and lands and treasures. Nay, the force of the
words I had read went farther than that. I felt it, down in my heart.
Not only I must take no measures to proclaim my title to the world's
regard; but I must be such and so unlike it in my whole way of life,
dress and all, that the world would not wish to recognize me, nor have
anything to do with me.

I counted the cost now, and it seemed heavy. There was Miss Bentley,
with her clumsy finery, put on as it were one dollar above the other.
She patronized me, as a little country-girl who knew nothing. Must I
not undeceive her? There was Faustina St. Clair, really of a good
family, and insolent on the strength of it; must I never let her know
that mine was as good and that my mother had as much knowledge of the
proprieties and elegances of life as ever hers had? These girls and
plenty of the others looked down upon me as something inferior; not
belonging to their part of society; must I be content henceforth to
live so simply that these and others who judge by the outside would
never be any wiser as to what I